wealth, to rise in society, to leave their descendants higher
than themselves, to be (in some sense) among the founders of

families. Scott was in the same town nourishing similar
dreams. But in the eyes of the women these dreams would be

foolish and idolatrous.
I have before me some volumes of old letters addressed to

Mrs. Smith and the two girls, her favourites, which depict in
a strong light their characters and the society in which they

moved.
`My very dear and much esteemed Friend,' writes one

correspondent, `this day being the anniversary of our
acquaintance, I feel inclined to address you; but where shall

I find words to express the fealings of a graitful HEART,
first to the Lord who graiciously inclined you on this day

last year to notice an afflicted Strainger providentially cast
in your way far from any Earthly friend? . . . Methinks I

shall hear him say unto you, "Inasmuch as ye shewed kindness
to my afflicted handmaiden, ye did it unto me." '

This is to Jean; but the same afflicted lady wrote
indifferently to Jean, to Janet, and to Ms. Smith, whom she

calls `my Edinburgh mother.' It is plain the three were as
one person, moving to acts of kindness, like the Graces,

inarmed. Too much stress must not be laid on the style of
this correspondence; Clarinda survived, not far away, and may

have met the ladies on the Calton Hill; and many of the
writers appear, underneath the conventions of the period, to

be genuinely moved. But what unpleasantly strikes a reader
is, that these devout unfortunates found a revenue in their

devotion. It is everywhere the same tale; on the side of the
soft-hearted ladies, substantial acts of help; on the side of

the correspondents, affection, italics, texts, ecstasies, and
imperfect spelling. When a midwife is recommended, not at all

for proficiency in her important art, but because she has `a
sister whom I [the correspondent] esteem and respect, and

[who] is a spiritual daughter of my Hond Father in the
Gosple,' the mask seems to be torn off, and the wages of

godliness appear too openly. Capacity is a secondary matter
in a midwife, temper in a servant, affection in a daughter,

and the repetition of a shibboleth fulfils the law. Common
decency is at times forgot in the same page with the most

sanctified advice and aspiration. Thus I am introduced to a
correspondent who appears to have been at the time the

housekeeper at Invermay, and who writes to condole with my
grandmother in a season of distress. For nearly half a sheet

she keeps to the point with an excellent discretion in
language then suddenly breaks out:

`It was fully my intention to have left this at
Martinmass, but the Lord fixes the bounds of our habitation.

I have had more need of patience in my situation here than in
any other, partly from the very violent, unsteady, deceitful

temper of the Mistress of the Family, and also from the state
of the house. It was in a train of repair when I came here

two years ago, and is still in Confusion. There is above six
Thousand Pounds' worth of Furniture come from London to be put

up when the rooms are completely finished; and then, woe be to
the Person who is Housekeeper at Invermay!'

And by the tail of the document, which is torn, I see she
goes on to ask the bereaved family to seek her a new place.

It is extraordinary that people should have been so deceived
in so careless an impostor; that a few sprinkled `God

willings' should have blinded them to the essence of this
venomous letter; and that they should have been at the pains

to bind it in with others (many of them highly touching) in
their memorial of harrowing days. But the good ladies were

without guile and without suspicion; they were victims marked
for the axe, and the religious impostors snuffed up the wind

as they drew near.
I have referred above to my grandmother; it was no slip

of the pen: for by an extraordinaryarrangement, in which it
is hard not to suspect the managing hand of a mother, Jean

Smith became the wife of Robert Stevenson. Mrs. Smith had
failed in her design to make her son a minister, and she saw

him daily more immersed in business and worldlyambition. One
thing remained that she might do: she might secure for him a

godly wife, that great means of sanctification; and she had
two under her hand, trained by herself, her dear friends and

daughters both in law and love - Jean and Janet. Jean's
complexion was extremely pale, Janet's was florid; my

grandmother's nose was straight, my great-aunt's aquiline; but
by the sound of the voice, not even a son was able to

distinguish one from other. The marriage of a man of twenty-
seven and a girl of twenty who have lived for twelve years as

brother and sister, is difficult to conceive. It took place,
however, and thus in 1799 the family was still further

cemented by the union of a representative of the male or
worldly element with one of the female and devout.

This essential difference remained unbridged, yet never
diminished the strength of their relation. My grandfather

pursued his design of advancing in the world with some measure
of success; rose to distinction in his calling, grew to be the

familiar of members of Parliament, judges of the Court of
Session, and `landed gentlemen'; learned a ready address, had

a flow of interesting conversation, and when he was referred
to as `a highly respectable BOURGEOIS,' resented the

description. My grandmother remained to the end devout and
unambitious, occupied with her Bible, her children, and her

house; easily shocked, and associating largely with a clique
of godly parasites. I do not know if she called in the

midwife already referred to; but the principle on which that
lady was recommended, she accepted fully. The cook was a

godly woman, the butcher a Christian man, and the table
suffered. The scene has been often described to me of my

grandfather sawing with darkened countenance at some
indissoluble joint - `Preserve me, my dear, what kind of a

reedy, stringy beast is this?' - of the joint removed, the
pudding substituted and uncovered; and of my grandmother's

anxious glance and hasty, deprecatory comment, `Just
mismanaged!' Yet with the invincible obstinacy of soft

natures, she would adhere to the godly woman and the Christian
man, or find others of the same kidney to replace them. One

of her confidants had once a narrow escape; an unwieldy old
woman, she had fallen from an outside stair in a close of the

Old Town; and my grandmother rejoiced to communicate the
providential circumstance that a baker had been passing

underneath with his bread upon his head. `I would like to
know what kind of providence the baker thought it!' cried my

grandfather.
But the sally must have been unique. In all else that I

have heard or read of him, so far from criticising, he was
doing his utmost to honour and even to emulate his wife's

pronounced opinions. In the only letter which has come to my
hand of Thomas Smith's, I find him informing his wife that he

was `in time for afternoon church'; similar assurances or
cognate excuses abound in the correspondence of Robert

Stevenson; and it is comical and pretty to see the two
generations paying the same court to a female piety more

highly strung: Thomas Smith to the mother of Robert Stevenson
- Robert Stevenson to the daughter of Thomas Smith. And if

for once my grandfather suffered himself to be hurried, by his
sense of humour and justice, into that remark about the case

of Providence and the Baker, I should be sorry for any of his
children who should have stumbled into the same attitude of

criticism. In the apocalyptic style of the housekeeper of
Invermay, woe be to that person! But there was no fear;

husband and sons all entertained for the pious, tender soul
the same chivalrous and moved affection. I have spoken with

one who remembered her, and who had been the intimate and
equal of her sons, and I found this witness had been struck,